BOSTON—With his team one win away from advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Brad Marchand decided to take his spot in history.

"The fourth game's always the hardest one to get," Marchand said from the center of a giant semicircle of cameras and voice recorders. As he finished his sentence, confetti rained down from the ceiling of the Bruins' locker room, a banner saying "ONE MILLION!" unfurled, and a marching band entered, playing Kool & The Gang's "Celebration." It was a magical moment, if completely imaginary, for the millionth utterance of one of hockey's grandest cliches.

For the Bruins, closing out series has not always been an easy task, and Claude Julien was reminded of that on Friday morning, asked by Kevin Walsh of CSN New England about his 3-6 record in potential clinching games (other than Game 7s, which are also elimination games).

"I knew something positive would come from you, Walshie," Julien said with a laugh. "I'm gonna try and make it 4-6 tonight. How's that?"

Julien's teams have completed two sweeps—in 2009 against the Canadiens and 2011 against the Flyers. Three of those six losses in non-Game 7 chances came in 2010, when the Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead and lost to Philadelphia, becoming the third team in NHL history to choke so mightily.

But is it really true that the fourth win in a series is the most difficult to get? According to data from whowins.com, which tracks best-of-seven series in all sports, the answer is no.

Teams who are tied in a series obviously have a .500 record, because one team wins and one team loses in each of those situations. There are six possible untied states for a series to be in, and here are their records in the subsequent games (through last year's playoffs)...

Up 1-0: 322-269 in Game 2 (.545 winning percentage)
Up 2-0: 172-150 in Game 3 (.534)
Up 3-0: 108-64 in Game 4 (.628)
Up 2-1: 198-221 in Game 4 (.473)
Up 3-1: 151-111 in Game 5 (.576)
Up 3-2: 188-144 in Game 6 (.566)

It really should not come as a surprise that teams who already have beaten an opponent three times in a series have a good track record at winning a fourth—they have won three games for a reason, which generally is that they're better. The teams who get to three wins and then let their opponent force a Game 7 still have a 75-69 record in deciding contests, a .521 winning percentage that is better than teams' in Game 4 up 2-1.

The Bruins led the Maple Leafs, 2-1, and then took Game 4 in Toronto, bucking the historical trend as well as this year's, in which four of the other six teams who took 2-1 series leads lost Game 4. That's because the hardest win to get in a series is the third one—teams are a combined 514-559 when up 2-0, up 2-1, or down 3-2.

"I think it gets tossed around a lot that the fourth one's the hardest," Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference said. "But I don't think it's any harder than the first, or second, or third. Every win is tough. It's playoffs. The victories are earned, and there's no freebies. Regardless of the game or the situation, you have to have respect for your opponent. You have to respect the fact that if you don't come out and play extremely hard and do all the right things, there's a good chance you'll lose. Seventh game or first game, there's not a whole lot of difference. If you make mistakes and don't come prepared, things aren't going to go well for you."

The notion of the fourth win being the hardest comes from the memorable occasions when desperate teams rallied to stave off elimination. Much more often, the teams who are able to win three games in a series have already shown their ability to avoid mistakes and come prepared—and doing it one more time results in a fourth win and a handshake.